8 Christmases
April // February 9th, 2010 // 3 Comments »
When Joe first created our website, we vowed to blog regularly throughout our engagement. Several months later, after failing to carry through on this, we promised again to start blogging regularly. Well…that was two months ago, and we are just now getting around to our Holiday Blog! Life has been so hectic these past few months that the days and weeks just seem to fly by. Enough with the excuses…here is a recap of our whirlwind holidays!
Christmas break for April began on Friday, December 18th. That evening, we headed to Katy for the first round of family Christmases. The Hagemeiers gathered on Saturday and, as usual, there was plenty of entertainment. After a delicious meal, we watched The Hangover…because that is what every family should watch together during the holidays.
On Sunday, we met April’s friend, Kelly, and her husband, Brian, for lunch at one of the girls’ favorite restaurants – Chuy’s! After a little shopping in H-town, we headed to Livingston for Christmas #2 with the Haynes Family. We had yet another delicious meal before making the late-night trip back to Dallas because Joe had to work the next morning. April spent the next few days doing some last-minute Christmas shopping and gift wrapping while Joe worked.
Christmas Eve brought a rare “White Christmas” for Dallas. The day started off pretty miserable with a cold rain, but shortly after lunch, it changed over to snow and within an hour it was not just snow, but BLOWING SNOW. We spent the afternoon finishing up our gift wrapping while listening to Christmas music and watching the snow fall. The snow was beautiful, but it was much prettier to look at than to have to drive in. By the time we left for mass, it had started to accumulate and the roads were getting icy. The wind was blowing about 40mph and it felt like a full-blown blizzard. After mass, we gathered with Joe’s family at the Einspaniers for perhaps the most eventful of our 8 Christmases. Joe’s family takes the $20 gift exchange VERY seriously, and it got pretty intense. We managed to make it out with two pretty awesome gifts…a toaster oven and a set of “gourmet” steak knives. When we got home that night, we couldn’t wait until the next morning to open gifts, so we decided to open one gift each at midnight. April got Joe the one item on the wedding registry that he actually got excited about…a faux sheepskin throw from Pottery Barn, and he was completely surprised!
After opening the rest of our gifts on Christmas morning, we packed up the car and headed to Joe’s parents’ house for breakfast. There was still plenty of snow on the ground, so we played in it and took pictures. We left for Livingston late that morning and although April wasn’t too happy about spending three and half hours in the car on Christmas Day, we passed the time quickly by taking the newlywed quiz that Joe’s Aunt Laurie gave us the night before. Unfortunately, we didn’t do so well, but the wedding is still on…as of now.
The day after Christmas, we took our engagement pictures in Livingston. We still have not seen them, but are sure they turned out great! On Sunday, April’s sister, Brooke (the Maid of Honor), came back to Dallas to spend a few days with us. The girls spent the next few days hanging out, shopping and doing “girl stuff”. On Wednesday, they went to the bridal salon to check out bridesmaid dresses again, and after the consultant informed April that the dresses needed to be ordered asap, they were able to choose the PERFECT dress! Brooke left on Wednesday and we were sad to see her go.
On New Year’s Eve, we had dinner at Mi Cocina with our friends Dan and Kaitlyn, and somehow managed to stay up to ring in the new year. The next day, we went to Midlothian to April’s cousin, Lauren’s (Matron of Honor) house for lunch with her family. That evening, we had a date to Studio Movie Grill to see It’s Complicated. Saturday night we had dinner at Joe’s parents’ before going to see Up in the Air. We spent Sunday just being lazy. Unfortunately, even lazy days seem to fly by recently, but it was the perfect end to a wonderful holiday season!
We are really looking forward to our first married Christmas next year. That will be here pretty soon, considering we are already six weeks into 2010. So far, this year has been great, and it’s only going to get better!
